


Tap on my window, Knock on my door

by kira892



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 14:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kira892/pseuds/kira892
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You expect him to protest, to roll his eyes at you and mumble about being comfortable in his water-logged clothes before launching off on a speech with far too many words and even more bullshit that he’d be more comfortable slowly freezing to death than to be naked in your presence.  A heartbeat later you want to hit yourself for even thinking that way when he says nothing and just gives you this look that makes your insides warm and your blood race and you know that this was about to happen. again. The world has knocked down all his sand castles and you’ve knocked his crown off his head taking the last thing he has and leaving behind only you. just you. And he needs you now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tap on my window, Knock on my door

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5, a song that would probably never stop being sad to me.

One of the good things about university is, though being an insignificant set of digits in a sea of thousands just in one class alone often proves to be a one way ticket to self-learning, sitting in a lecture hall among a maritime of other pasty-skinned, sleep-deprived zombies grants you the freedom to pretty much do whatever the fuck you want without being bothered. Somewhere down the front, rows and rows beneath you, your Humanities professor is prattling on and on and on about the great philosophers and you sneak a glance at him from under your lashes, muffling your snicker behind your sleeve when he forgets for the umpteenth time that the podium he was standing on wasn’t exactly what one would call spacious when it comes to balding, old meat sacks who probably have their own gravitational pull.  You’re  bit disappointed when he doesn’t fall but you murmur a bored little “nyeh” and go right back to what you were doing when your professor dabs at his forehead with the sleeves of his pathetically cliché sports coat and jumps right back into his droning discussion on the Allegory of the Cave.

When your eyes move back to things you evidently find more interesting than your Monday morning lecture, they run into a pair of large brown ones. You temporarily freeze like a deer caught in headlights but ease down and let your features morph themselves into a relaxed, flirtatious smile, raising your eyebrows once. You watch your reflection on the immaculately spotless lenses of his glasses and don’t so much as flinch when he rolls his eyes and gives his undivided attention to the fat, divorced prat babbling on and on in front as if having extensive knowledge on ancient civilizations makes up for the fact that he virtually has no life and he gets off on the knowledge that he was smarter than young, strapping adults like you who come grovelling to his feet with thousands of bucks so that he may teach you knowledge you most probably won’t even have use for in real life.

Clicking your tongue, you reach into the pocket of your coat to pull out your phone and you send him a short text message, eyes snapping back across the aisle as soon as you finish typing, waiting for his reaction. You hear the faint buzz of his phone from somewhere on his person but he ignores it, which you expected and so does not deter you one bit. You resend the message over and over and over, as many times as it takes to piss him off and smirk when he finally yanks his phone out of his bag and reads your simple message of

_you should wvear glasses less often, you look like an old geezer wvith those things on,  wvich is just uncomfortable for me because goddamn vwantas, you still  look hot._

You see his face contort into that look he gets whenever it feels like he’s going to shit out the meterstick he constantly has up his ass and you prop one elbow on your desk, resting your chin on your open palm as you watch him furiously type up a response to your text, erase it, do it two more times before giving up, and putting his phone down. You chuckle inwardly, one other good thing about university and its lectures: Kankri Vantas cares about them so hilariously much that he would even give up lecturing _you_ in favor of paying attention to them.

_Please st9p._

You glance down in surprise as the reply pops up on your screen and you set your phone down on the open pages of your notebook, right above the sketch of Kankri you’d been working on before he noticed you and type out another text message to him with your index fingers.

_wvhy? am i **triggering** you? _

You look over to Kankri and stare at him for the next little while as he ignores your message again, which of course, does nothing to discourage you at all, again. Ripping out the page with your shitty sketch , you crumple it into a ball and take careful aim, hitting Kankri square on the side of the head. He sends you a glare that would make your nuts shrivel up and fall off if you were anyone else and practically snatches his phone up.

_Yes, y9u are actually. As y9u w9uld put it, FUCK 9FF PLEASE_

You type up a reply as fast as you can, before he gets the chance to turn his phone off or shove it deep into the recesses of his bag.

_awvwv don’t be like that babe, I told you id still bang you sincerely evwen looking like a pompous, divworced, i-care-more-about-ancient-history-than-getting-laid to be. it’s a compliment, its not rude or triggering in any wvay_

_Yes it is, and I w9uld gladly ela69rate 9n why until it 6reaks thr9ugh y9ur thick skull and sinks int9 the stu669rnly d9rmant neur9ns y9u have in y9ur 6rain 6ut I need t9 pay attenti9n, s9 let me say this again: FUCK 9FF PLEASE_

_you kiss your mother wvith that mouth? SCANDALOUS Kankri. you really wvanna knowv wvhat’s triggering? it wvould be me describing in great detail howv exactly i wvant to and wvould fuck your face, your ass and make you blowv your load all ovwer yourself. THAT wvould be **potentially** triggering, 8UT, as you wvell know, i said none of those things so you knowv, you might wvanna stop being so prickly and apologize_

The look Kankri sends your way this time would make Meenah and Porrim proud, god if looks could kill, that glare would grind up your limbs, skin, bone and all and then devour your soul.

_wvhat? you looking at me like you havwen’t evwer let me do any of those things to you._

Kankri only looks away to read your message and when he looks back, his soul-consuming glare hasn’t lessened one bit. However, his jaw is clenching and there was a tint of guilt and cageyness, slowly but oh so painfully clearly trickling into his expression and your shit-eating grin turns just a tad bit malicious over it. Kankri slowly turns back to his phone and just as slowly types up another message.

_Making advances on s9me9ne, n9 matter h9w su6tle c9uld still 6e triggering t9 pe9ple in **c9mmited relati9nships** _

That stings you the littlest bit but you easily bury it behind the incredulous ridicule that roared in laughter at Kankri’s words.

_oh right sorry, i totally forgot about the girl who ignores you 24/7, you know the same one_

_who is so obvwiously fucking her retarded ex-boyfriend behind your back._ You stare at that for a second before erasing it. You want to wait for the right time to tell him about that, besides you suspect he already knows anyway. Because honestly who doesn’t? Anyone who gets within 3 feet of Latula and Mituna would be able to fucking smell them on each other it was disgusting.

 _wvho alwvays makes sure you keep running back to me_. You erase that line too, that’s one of the strongest weapons you have in your arsenal, you need to save those for when you’re alone and you can rile him up all you want because then no one would be around to see him explode and break, sink back to _your_ level and realize that you deserve him as much as he deserves you.

_\- responsible for the cuts under your sleeves. you know? pretty ol’ latula “let me just ditch you again because badly pretending i give a shit about your thoughts and feelings so much you resort to cutting don’t cut it” pyrope.  yep, so sorry, i forgot committed relationships totally wvork like that._

This time, you don’t look at Kankri to see his reaction and keep your gaze dutifully trained forward, at the blackboard behind your professor as Kankri gathers his books up, shoves them into his bag and practically storms out of the lecture hall. Your phone rings before he gets even three steps away but you wait until you’ve heard the double doors slam shut before you read it.

_fuck you cr9nus._

Wow, give yourself a medal and a clap to the back Cronus Ampora, you seemed to have accomplished the impossible! You got Kankri Vantas to settle for a response of only three words!

You are truly an exceptional human being.

Look you even managed to get him to do that thing he does when he gets so upset he forgets to capitalize words.

This is practically routine now though and you bury the guilt before it even gets a chance to really hit you in the face, pocketing your phone and turning your attention to the loose stitches on your sleeve. It’s alright, no big deal, you’d inflicted another cut on him. Roped in with all the others, it still wouldn’t fucking compare to the scars he’s left on you, the deep gouges he leaves every day. Besides,

he’d always come running back anyway.

You wonder how long it’ll take him this time.

Not long at as it turns out. Two days to be specific. You’re innocently sitting at your desk, typing away at some essay you fully intend to barely get a passing mark on when your phone chirps out a mechanical beep. You idly pick it up with one hand whilst still typing with your other and raise an eyebrow when you turn your attention away from your laptop.

Porrim just sent you a text.

_Kanny left six ho+urs ago+, even his bro+ther is starting to+ get wo+rried._

A small sigh seeps out from your lips and you lean back on your chair. You wonder what happened this time and just how bad it is.

_okay wvhat do you wvant me to do about it? i don’t knowv wvhere he is_

_I do+ I already to+ld Karkat to+ tell their parents he’s staying with me fo+r the night to+ finish a pro+ject. He’s at campus, pick him up._

You idle for a few seconds, hesitating while you tap your thumbs against the keys, too light to press them.

_wvhy? babysitting him is your job_

_Maybe so+ but making him fo+rget abo+ut ro+mantic pro+blems by fucking them o+ut of his system is yo+urs_

_…besides, we bo+th kno+w he’s go+ing to+ end up with yo+u to+night o+ne way o+r ano+ther_

You frown a bit at that but you don’t deny it. It’s true, Kankri needs you too much to soothe the tattered shreds of his ego and keep his insecurities at bay too much to let you go. Latula doesn’t want him, so he needs you. You sigh heavily.

_alright, alright, im on it. mind telling me wvhat can ‘trigger’ him though before i go charging straight into the emotional shit storm you’re sending me off to?_

You go off to get your coat and your keys before Porrim can reply and when you get back to your desk, you scoff at the message waiting in your inbox.

_Po+o+r little Kanny go+t an early Christmas present. No+thing highlights the ho+lidays better than a pre-break up telegram delivered in the fo+rm of yo+ur girlfriend’s paramo+ur leaving her a dirty message in yo+ur answering machine whilst she’s writhing o+n yo+ur lap and all up in yo+ur face, ready to+ make yo+u feel special._

An undignified snort that was probably meant to be a cross between a chuckle and a scoff is your automatic response to that and you shake your head slowly as you pocket your phone. You imagine what it must have been like as you make your way out of your apartment and trudge through the icy parking lot to your car; Latula on Kankri’s lap, macking on his face like she means it and then Mituna’s voice ringing through Kankri’s room, even more nasally and annoying because of the shitty speaker on his ancient answering machine. You picture the wide-eyed shock on both their faces as you get into your car and wince at the horrified awkwardness even you could feel just through imagination alone as you wait for the car to heat up.

You picture the hurt on Kankri’s face the entire drive to campus and another long, weary sigh escapes you as you pull up in the mostly empty parking lot. You sit there, with the engine still on for a while, staring at the mounds of snow piled up on the sidewalk before you go looking for him to pick up the pieces of his broken heart even when he doesn’t want you to.

God, how the hell did you let yourself sink this deep?

Whatever this…thing you’ve got going on with him is definitely not healthy and something no normal person your age would engage in.

You pull out a pack of smokes from the small stash you’ve got hidden in your glove compartment and you light one up as you exit the car. Hah. When the fuck had you ever been healthy and normal?

You check the library and all the various student lounges for a lonely little figure in a huge fluffy sweater. When those places turn up empty, you look through the cafeteria and even the lobby of the resident building. You pause in your search there, wracking your brain for any other places you think he might be. You come up blank but just as you were about to head out to the parking lot, thinking perhaps Kankri had already left to go somewhere else, you spot a familiar looking girl that you’re pretty sure you share a class or two with Kankri.  You were already outside when you spot her and she was walking a good twenty or so feet away from you so you whistle loudly to get her attention. Thankfully, she turns and you jog up to her, waving. You scramble for a name as you approach and your eyes dart between the thin lips, the long, dark wavy hair and the rather overblown plush squid sown onto a thin, wool beanie on her head. Her chin was half buried under a scarf covered with a pattern of smiling mochis. What’s her name, uhhh, you were sure you’ve heard it before, you retain the names of every attractive person you come across when you can in case you get the chance to hit on them later. What’s hers? Umm… Izz…Izzy?

“Hey, umm, you’re in my English class right? err…Izzy?”

“Isabel and yes, I am.” She says with a smile. She really is quite pretty, you note absently and if you don’t spend your time nowadays running after a mouthy, hot-mess in  a red sweater you’d probably try to pick her  up now.

“Right, sorry to bother you but do you know this one kid in our class? Short, big eyes, freakishly long, girly eyelashes. He wears a red sweater every other day of the week and talks too much?”

Isabel giggles at that. “You mean Kankri Vantas?”

You give her a pistol and a wink. “That’s him. The answer’s probably no but you wouldn’t happen to know where he is at the moment do you?”

Her mouth parts in a startled little o and she puts a finger to her chin. “Actually I do, wow , you lucked out. I saw him in the ice rink not too long ago, he’s probably still there.”

You groan inwardly at that. The ice rink was all the way across campus, next to the gym but ah well.  You thank Isabel with a wide, charming grin and a pat on the arm and you can swear she looks after you with a decidedly non-platonic interest. The fact doesn’t sink in until you’re already in the office right above the rink, breaking into the closet where the university hockey team (which includes you) keep their spare jerseys, blades and hockey sticks. You pick a pair of blades your size, not caring whose it could be and you pause, realizing you’d completely ignored a pretty girl who could possibly be interested in you and didn’t even give it a second thought until you’ve walked all the way across campus from her.

And all for what?

You think about it all the way to the rink where your answer glides in slow, fluid arcs across the ice on a pair of old, black skates. It’s after hours and he’s in here alone, you’re surprised to note that he put the music on, knowing he preferred silence when he was brooding.

You watch him for a while as he glides and spins, lost in his own movements and thoughts. You lose yourself in them too but the labyrinth you wander is bigger, caged in by a perimeter of your own thoughts.

_This is how I show my love_

_I made it in my mind because_

_I blame it on my a.d.d. baby_

_This is how an angel dies_

_I Blame it on my own sick pride_

_Blame it on my a.d.d. baby_

 

The lyrics float down to you from the speakers mounted just under the ceiling and you absently mouth the words as you realize that Kankri was skating to the rhythm.  There was no part of you that could deny he looks beautiful like that. He almost doesn’t look real, in the way figure skaters used to look to you as a child, like angels floating on thin air, dancing on it like they were part of it. and part of you wants to tear him down from that pedestal, to expose the raw, hurt, human underneath.  You suppose that makes you sound cruel, maybe it does but maybe you want to do it because you know he looks beautiful, angry and out of control.

Maybe you want to do it because he’s taken a chunk of your life, your self that you can never get back. And knocking him off his throne and bringing him down to your level makes you less afraid he’d leave and take that small part of you forever.

 

_Maybe I should cry for help_

_Maybe I should kill myself_

_Blame it on my a.d.d_

You lace up your skates and prepare to join him and just as you stand up to go onto the ice, you see him do a series of overambitious jumps that predictably end in a spectacular wipe out. You expected him to get up and brush himself off, blushing half his body content in blood and look around to see if anyone saw but he doesn’t. He just lies there in a crumpled heap, defeat traceable in the listless lines of his limbs, the way his face was half buried in the ice. He’d thrown his punches and now he just wants to curl up and die. You shake your head, skating over to him with a few quick glides. You screech to a stop a few inches away from his face, showering his hair in a spray of shredded ice. Kankri flinches and jerks his head up to look at you, the second you see his eyes peer up through the curtain of ice and hair obstructing his face, he glares and puts his head back down on the ice.

“You gonna stay down there all night?”

“Only until you leave me alone.”

You rest your hands on your hips and click your tongue. “Yeahhh no, that ain’t happening. You fuck harder when you’re mad and upset. Do you really not know me Kanny? If there’s anything I’m willing to work for, it’s the chance to get laid.”

No one outside the circle you loosely refer to as your “friends” have ever heard you speak like that and even within the 11 people in it, probably only three , excluding Kankri have seen you so freely…you. There were only a very select few people in your life that you don’t bother layering on your transparent nice-guy bullshit for and in that list, the asshole lying at your feet probably has his ass firmly seated on the number one slot.

_Maybe I’m a different breed_

_Maybe I’m not listening_

_So blame it on my a.d.d baby_

 

Kankri groans and slowly pulls himself up to sit. He doesn’t look at you as he sluggishly swipes at his hair and clothes in a half-hearted attempt to rid himself of shredded ice. He sighs.

“I refuse to engage in your childish whims, admittedly it’s very hard to ignore you when you’re hellbent on pushing a hot button but I really, really, _really_ , pardon my language, don’t want to deal with your bullshit right now.”

“Aww really? That’s too bad because I’m really, really, really in the mood to deal with yours.”

Kankri closes his eyes and his mouth twists into a half-snarl as he takes in a deep breath.  “Would you jus-”

“Tell you what, let’s do some laps, if you beat me to that penalty box after 5 laps, I’ll leave you alone.” You challenge him, pointing at your designated finish line. For a second Kankri just presses his lips into a thin line, glaring up at you from under his bangs. You know and he knows that you’d win and you fully expected him to lash out at your attempt to bully him into a corner but he doesn’t. Instead he pulls himself up to his feet, every line of his body rigid with high-strung tension  and glares up at you head on.

“Fine.” He grits out and takes off like a fucking bullet the split second the syllable is out of his mouth.

Wow, he’s really pissed if he’s opting to play your game in the hopes of _forcing_ you away rather than keep his cool long enough to ignore you until _you_ throw a tantrum and leave in a huff.  You shake your head and take off after him like he had the puck and he was about to slap it in for the winning shot. For a while it actually looks like running on angry, i-need-the-world-to-fuck-off power alone is enough for him to have a shot at beating you but you easily overtake him after lap three, blazing past him through lap four. On lap five, you slow down the slightest bit to glance at his face to see it contorted in anger, just about ready to burst and you grin, shoving him into the wall as gently as you could before darting off the last few feet to the penalty box.

You grind to a graceful stop, leaving a small pile of shredded ice crowded down the sides of the penalty box and you turn to see Kankri curled down up against the wall, one hand stretched up and pressed to the plexiglass. You’re guessing that’s exactly how he ended up after you shoved him and he hasn’t moved at all.  You watch as he sinks down to the ice slowly, stretching his legs out in front of him and letting his arms flop uselessly down his sides.  You skate back over to him silently, crouching down once you’re in front of him. He doesn’t look at you, just stares down at the ice, face painfully blank in the way you’ve come to understand just _screams_ that he was more than ready to seriously destroy something.

You keep your taunts to yourself, the time for them is over. His kid brother can be pretty scary when he’s mad but that pales in comparison to when Kankri gets really, truly angry. The scary thing isn’t in what people would assume though, Kankri isn’t one to cause damage…to _other_ _people_ when he’s mad. Of course, make no mistake, he wants to but he’s more likely to hurt himself trying.  You once saw him square off against Damara in a fight that left no doubt in your mind would never be forgotten by anyone _ever_. He broke three knuckles on his right hand when a blindly furious fist missed but he just kept going until he broke the fourth too. The fight ended with him sporting a broken arm, deep gouges on his face and a cut on his side from a pocket knife Damara had. She nicked him in the face with it and then, in a move that would probably haunt you forever, tried to dig his fingers into her eye. He didn’t even flinch when she raked her own, talon-nails down his face. The only way she got him to let go was by trying to stab him.

That was a once in a lifetime thing though, you’ve known him for years and you’d only seen him that mad during that time….at least maybe until now.

You exhale noisily through your nose then, ever so carefully lean forward and plant a kiss on his forehead.

“Of all the people Porrim can send after me, it has to be you.”

You say nothing to that, just press your forehead against his.

Yeah. Because he was such a sad little shit who had no redeeming qualities that you were the only ones who really give a fuck about him.

That train of thought starts out with him as the pathetic sack of trash but then…what does that make you?

Silence fills in the gaps in the few seconds that pass between you and then you pull back a little.

“Let’s go, security rounds will probably start any second now. Might as well go before they come kick us out.”

He’s silent as you unlace your skates, kill the radio and shut off the lights and you ignore him the whole time, letting the ugly breakdown build so that when it comes out, it goes out all at once. You can practically feel it rolling off of him in waves when you go to put away your skates and you half force him to leave his there in a cubicle with your spare jersey in it and he practically shoves you aside on your way out.

Finally he blows up on the way to the parking lot, when you offhandedly comment “can’t say you didn’t see this coming.”

He spits out cold, venomous words at you, aiming straight for sore spots that would hurt you on a bad day but you calmly ignore his barbs and fight back with a distinctly condescending air until he starts yelling at you and then that’s when you grab him by the waist and bodily haul him into the small indoor pool wedged between the gym and the ice rink. The doors to it had a faulty lock which you had no difficulty removing even with a rabid, enraged Kankri thrashing within your grip and attempting to hit you. Once you have the lock off you toss him over your shoulder and walk straight into the pool.

Kankri sputters and thrashes and you grab onto him with all your strength, gripping him tight as you dunk the both of you under. Slowly, methodically, you tire him out, holding him underwater and letting his rage trickle out with his strength and his breath, as many times as it took for him to be so weak he couldn’t even get it back with every desperate break for air you give him.

“You done?”

You ask after a good five minutes of just standing in chest deep water with a now completely silent, still Kankri in your arms, devoid of the dark, noiseless rage he had in the rink. He keeps his eyes down and nods ever so slowly. You kiss him on the forehead again.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Yes. I think it’s a permanent thing now.”

You snort. “Ironic no? remember what you told me in highschool? What was it? “You don’t need to be dating someone who can’t appreciate you” hmm?” you ask. “Bit hypocritical there Vantas”

“Perhaps it is”

You consider angling for the “can’t say you didn’t see this coming” thing again but you decide against it. You know it, he knows it, rubbing an I told you so in his face really won’t do anything but make him angry again thereby esnsuring that you  can calm him down and end up right where you are all over again. Also, because knowing the inevitable doesn’t really do jackshit in making it hurt any less, especially for someone like Kankri, whose greatest talent, other than pissing people off with his pretentious brand of douchebag-ery  is holding on to his delusions no matter how thin and fragile they are. Case in point, he kept thinking he could keep Latula even though the break up was so written on stone for them since day one. He also kept trying to deny that he feels anything for you and believing that one day soon you’d be unable to pull him in.

Yet here he is.

You think you ought to be happy that he seems to _finally_ admit defeat to reality but sadly, you’re not that much of a shitty person. And maybe, excluding the fact that this most probably wouldn’t change how he feels about you…yet,  you’re just so fucked up in your masochistic little head that you’re convinced, in some twisted, depraved level, you’re inlove with him and seeing him so tired and miserable just doesn’t sit right with you.

“You know Maryam already told your folks you’re staying at her place tonight. Don’t suppose you want to go there?”

Kankri glances at you from beneath dark lashes clumped together by water and shakes his head. “No.” With slow, careful movements, he stretches forward like a person settling on a bed and twists around to float on his back in the water. He stares up at the ceiling probably thinking of Latula or Mituna or something and you watch him for a couple of seconds before deciding to leave him alone for a bit.

You think maybe you ought to be worried he’d bolt and disappear off into the night to do something self-destructive when you dive under to clear your own head but somehow you’re sure that he won’t. You swim a few laps an inch or two just above the pool floor, completely at home under water. It makes you feel a tinge of longing for your highschool competitive swimming days. When you resurface for a few, unhurried breaths, Kankri isn’t floating where you left him anymore but he’s sitting on one side of the pool with his sleeves pushed up. You swim over to him right away.

He’s tracing his fingers over a few, shallow, fresh cuts on his right wrist. They’re no thinner than a single strand of hair and after having been submerged in water, they mostly look like simple pale pink lines on his skin. You reach up with a thumb to brush over some of the paler lines up his arm, marks left behind by slow scabs. Goddamn he was a slow healer.

You’ve never called him out on this shit and you never will you think. You don’t understand, you only tried it once when you were a 15 year old douchefuck on tumblr and you did that for attention. You know he doesn’t and you know he doesn’t do it because he wants to die either his cuts are all too shallow for either of those.  There’s a whole fucking ton of them though, all over his arms, his legs and no one knows it but you, maybe Porrim.  You used to wonder if Latula did but you dismissed that thought with a snort figuring sex between the two of them was rarer than an endangered animal.  

Heaven knows he’s too righteous to let out steam like a normal person, he’d never touch alcohol unless someone practically forces him to and after Porrim found out he smokes on occasion, she’s banned him from it, having a grand ol’ motherly shitfit as she reminded him his family had a rich history of cancer. So you let him have this, if it helps him any, who are you to stop him?

You grab his wrist and he lets you press a kiss to it, which encourages you to kiss a slow trail up his forearm. He stops you with a hand on your hair and you peer up at him inquisitively.

“I’m tired. Can we go?”

You blink at him before nodding silently.

It was snowing when you step outside in waterlogged clothes, which wasn’t as bad when you were crossing the distance to your car within the safe confines of the warm, heated campus halls than it was when you emerged out of the main doors and had to walk almost 3 blocks to your car.

Kankri is a shivering mess when you finally hustle him into the back seat. You’re not faring much better and you hastily turn the heat on, cranking it up as high as it would go.  For about ten minutes, there’s only the sound of the heat pouring out of the vents in waves and the faint clacking of Kankri’s teeth as he waits for his shivers to stop. You tremble silently in the driver’s seat, waiting til you’re even marginally warm before shucking off your wet shirt. Your pants and boxers follow it after a second and you glance at Kankri’s curled up form through the rearview mirror.

“You should probably take off your shit too, you know, before you get sick or something.”

You expect him to protest, to roll his eyes at you and mumble about being comfortable in his water-logged clothes before launching off on a speech with far too many words and even more bullshit that he’d be more comfortable slowly freezing to death than to be naked in your presence.  A heartbeat later you want to hit yourself for even thinking that way when he says nothing and just gives you this _look_ that makes your insides warm and your blood race and you know that this was about to happen. again. The world has knocked down all his sand castles and you’ve knocked his crown off his head taking the last thing he has and leaving behind only you. Just you. And he needs you now.

Kankri’s eyes drop down and he slowly peels off his sweater, it isn’t the red one today but you hardly notice or care what color it is even as you watch with careful intent each little move he has to make to take it off. He lets it drop to the ground and then curls into himself again, tucking his legs under his chin.

“Cronus, I’m cold.”

Silently, obediently, you relocate yourself to the backseat and settle down next to him. You sit as close as physical space would allow, throwing an arm over his shoulder to pull him to you, warm, naked skin to warm, naked skin. It takes him a few seconds and you practically feel the moment he decides he’s really doing this again. He rests his head on your shoulder, twisting around to be able to rest a hand on your chest.

“Aren’t you going to tell me I told you so?” he murmurs quietly, hot breath washing over your skin.

“Do you want me to?” you murmur back.

He shakes his head and your heart pounds in your chest.

“I want you Kankri. Always have, when she never did.” You say to him, voice dropping down into a sensual whisper. He started tugging and now you’re pulling him relentlessly closer, back into that wild, lawless orbit that only you and he share.  You nudge his head away with yours so you can dive in and layer kisses on his jaw, his neck. Kankri swallows down a breath and you burn to touch him.

“Can you do me a favor?” he asks as you slowly shift the two of you so that his back was pressed against the door and you’re leaning over him.

“Hmm?” you ask continuing to kiss at his neck.

“Lie to me.”

“About what?” you ask in between kisses and nips that you line up down to his collarbone. His arms come up to wrap around you and he whispers the answer in your ear, so low as if he was afraid the entire world was listening.

You oblige him with words and actions, tasting his skin like you couldn’t get enough, undressing him like it was driving you mad not to have his skin on yours. You kiss him passionately, tenderly, like a lover and not a persistent thief, waiting to steal the core of his heart more out of the possessive need to keep it from other people than to have it for yourself.

But honestly, you yourself don’t even know if you’re pretending for his sake or both of yours.

You like him like this the best, you decide as you fumble with the small bottle of lube you always keep in the car door compartment. Your mouth muffles the sounds he makes but some still escape, steaming up the windows with heated pants and moans as his fingers scratch desperate lines across your tattooed shoulders.  You pull back a bit to watch his face, flushed and wanton and craving you. Just you. You love this side of him, the needy, insecure child who so desperately needs reassurance. You bask in his weakness and happily drown yourself in the knowledge that in this state even if only temporarily, he unashamedly wants you, _needs you_ , a reversal of roles that leaves your head spinning with power and desire.

You press your mouth to his ear and you whisper words he’s put into your mouth labelled as lies they tumble out with things you mean, things you don’t and things you think you do. You fuck him through all of it and the more you lose yourself in him, the more you don’t know the difference between all the words that keep pouring out of your mouth.

“Say it again,” Kankri whispers, low and hoarse, one hand lost in your hair the other carving possessive marks down your spine.

“I love you.” You growl roughly in his ear, licking the shell and taking the lobe between your teeth.

Kankri shudders and pushes his hips up against yours, spurring you on, movements growing faster, more erratic.

“Again.”

“I love you. I love you. Love you. Want you. So fucking much I can’t stand it.”

Kankri whimpers and you gather him up in your arms as you sit up. He wraps his legs around your waist while you shift and you end up with a lapful of him, your back against the back rest, feet to the floor. You use it as leverage to continue rolling your hips up against his.

“I want you so much I hated it everytime you even _looked_ at Latula. So much that I learned to love pissing you off because I thought it was the only way I can have you.”

Kankri moans into your shoulder and you grab a handful of his hair, tugging his head back so you can fasten your mouth against his throat. “I’ll keep coming back no matter how much you push me away. Because I only want you.  Fuck, I love you.”

 He comes with your name on his lips and your words still whispering in his ear. You keep saying them, lie-truths that you couldn’t be bothered to figure out. He drinks them all in silently as he slumps against you. You’re still hard and you roll your hips lazily against his as the litany meant for his ears and his ears alone continues to slip from your lips. Eventually, he turns his head to drink them in as opposed to listening, he kisses you heatedly and so intently he ends up bent over on his knees with his cheek pressed to the seat and you draped over him muffling your pants against his neck and his shoulders as you work yourself to completion.

Afterwards you sit in heavy silence, curled together on the middle of the seat. You know that now, all his walls are coming back up and he’s going to go right back to treating you like shit and you’d go back to doing the same whilst still trailing after him like a brain-damaged puppy with sharp teeth and masochistic tendencies. And you wonder why you even try, why you’re here, now, licking his wounds and nursing him back to health so that he can knock you down.

But then Kankri falls asleep in your arms, hands locked tight around your neck and you know. This little shit has got you bad and you’d be damned if you stop breaking this pattern anytime soon.

So you just hold him, and you watch the faint movement of snow through the foggy windows.

**Author's Note:**

> if there's anyone wondering, the song playing in the rink was Sail by AWOLNATION. it fits and i could actually imagine kanny skating casually to the rythm


End file.
